Ahmed El Desouky uses additive manufacturing to take thin-film processing equipment in novel directions faster and more cost effectively
When it comes to 3D-printed end-use part production, the aerospace and medical industries have captured most of the attention in recent years. But another manufacturing sector is beginning to challenge that situation, especially in light of the CHIPS and Science Act, which according to a White House statement, “provides $52.7 billion for American semiconductor research, development, manufacturing, and workforce development.”
That’s good news to Ahmed El Desouky, whose employer, Plainview, N.Y.-based Veeco Instruments Inc., stands in good position to capitalize on these funds as the nation’s semiconductor chip manufacturers construct massive production fabrication facilities in response to the legislation.
Veeco’s website describes the company as “a global capital equipment supplier that designs and builds processing systems used in semiconductor and compound semiconductor manufacturing, data storage, and scientific markets.” Both anticipate, however, that demand for their products will grow significantly over the coming years as chipmakers begin producing more of these critical devices in the United States.
“The U.S. designs roughly 85 percent of the semiconductor devices and chips in the world, but we currently only manufacture 12 percent of them,” El Desouky said. “And when you look at packaging, it’s even worse, with only three percent performed here. Obviously, these segments depend on high-quality capital equipment, and we look forward to working with our customers in these areas as they expand their capabilities.”
One of the tools that El Desouky thinks will play a key role in meeting this demand is additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing. That makes sense. Since early 2021, he’s served as the director of additive manufacturing for the 75-year-old Veeco. Prior to this, El Desouky spent nearly four years with Eaton Corp., where he was an aerospace AM specialist, and he worked at Carpenter Technology before that as a research and development metallurgist.
In each of these positions, El Desouky “came in on the ground floor,” meaning his employer was just getting started on its 3D-printing journey, and looking for ways to turn the technology into a mainstream manufacturing process rather than a prototype-only development tool. He was at Eaton when the company printed its first flight-approved component in 2019, which “was a great achievement for the entire team,” according to El Desouky, and he assisted powder metallurgy specialist Carpenter in creating its Additive Manufacturing division.
El Desouky also has spent many years in academia, including positions as an adjunct professor and postdoctoral scientist at George Washington University, graduate researcher at University of California San Diego, lecturer at San Diego State University, and assistant professor at the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST). His areas of study focused on materials processing and additive manufacturing, making him well-equipped for his chosen profession.
Bringing additive to a certain level of manufacturing maturity has turned out to be “kind of his thing,” and El Desouky is now working to give Veeco the same competitive edge he’s helped bring to others.
Along the way, he’s learned that the semiconductor industry presents unique opportunities and challenges for additive. “As you might imagine, cleanliness is a top priority, with requirements that are orders of magnitude higher even than those of the medical community,” he noted. “This is why, when you’re designing a component for semiconductor use, there’s more to it than making it printable, but designing it so that the part can be thoroughly cleaned afterward.”
Additive’s immense design freedom is a wonderful thing, he explained, yet such considerations tend to detract somewhat from this freedom, since the tiniest speck of dirt or an errant bit of powder can have serious repercussions when you’re producing capital equipment that will go into a clean room. “The biggest fear is having a micron or sub-micron-sized particle stuck to a component’s inner wall that breaks free six months into service,” El Desouky said. “That would be a killer, so we take all the necessary measures to ensure this never happens.”
Contamination concerns aside, Veeco enjoys the same benefits as other AM practitioners. Part consolidation, supply chain simplification, reduced design and production costs, along with faster time to market—these are just a few of the reasons why metal and polymer printing are consuming an ever larger slice of today’s manufacturing pie.
And while El Desouky can’t share exactly which components are emerging from the build chambers of Veeco’s partners’ laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF), directed-energy deposition (DED), and stereolithography (SL) printers, he will say that semiconductor processing equipment requires all manner of manifolds, gas delivery and mixing systems, cooling plates, housings, valves, and bellows.
El Desouky will also tell you that many of the materials used in these components are ones familiar to any aerospace engineer. “Parts in semiconductor equipment might not be subjected to the same levels of cyclic loading in aerospace, but they do have to endure extremely harsh chemical environments and are subjected to ultra-high vacuum conditions, which is why we’re quite familiar with materials like Inconel and similar heat-resistant superalloys, 300-series and PH stainless steels, advanced ceramics, and refractory metals such as tungsten and rhenium. That said, I expect there will be a good deal of new material development specific to the semiconductor industry as additive’s use in this area becomes more widespread and mature.”
This last comment seems ironic given AM’s ability to shorten and simplify manufacturing supply chains, a significant perk in light of the past two years of COVID-impacted semiconductor shortages that greased the legislative skids for the CHIPS Act. Why, then, has it taken so long for this industry to wake up and smell the additive coffee?
Much of it has to do with Gartner Inc.’s famous “Hype Cycle,” which helps define a technology’s maturity level. According to El Desouky, the semiconductor industry is transitioning from the third, “Trough of Disillusionment,” to the fourth, “Slope of Enlightenment,” of the five-phase cycle. Doubters have softened their stance, he noted, and now recognize the value that additive brings to the table, while the rapid depreciation of 3D-printing equipment that early investors may have suffered is now behind us as improved productivity and more robust machinery takes its place.
“Additive and semiconductors are a perfect match,” asserted El Desouky. “That’s especially true for equipment manufacturers like Veeco, which has a high mix, low volume of parts, and is happy to customize its offering based on the customer’s specific needs.”
Because of its additive capabilities, Veeco can quickly and cost effectively produce even very complex components in small lot sizes, he explained.
Compared to traditional manufacturing, that means shaving months and sometimes years off the development and learning cycles—and responding much faster to special requests, orders for replacement parts, or application-specific components. “It also allows us to either fix a supply chain issue where parts are taking too long to make or, conversely, are too expensive to make, and at the same time deliver major improvements by leveraging design for additive practices.”
Will these improvements help the semiconductor industry’s continued observance of Moore’s Law, which postulates that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit will double every two years, and which many in the industry predict will soon become obsolete as we approach silicon-based circuitry’s physical limitations?
No one can say for certain, but according to El Desouky, what AM will do is increase semiconductor equipment’s throughput and reproducibility, thus enabling the next generation of integrated circuitry.
There’s also a less obvious benefit: AM serves to protect intellectual property (IP). This is crucial to Veeco and others that manufacture semiconductor processing equipment (or any type of equipment, for that matter).
“Because we’re now able to combine multiple components that were once brazed or bolted together, it makes cloning and counterfeiting our IP quite difficult,” El Desouky said. “Instead of someone taking that assembly apart, they might now have to cut through a $150,000 component just to see what’s inside. And because we’ve eliminated those joints and connection points, the equipment is also more dependable, easier to service, and less susceptible to contamination.
“It’s a win-win all around,” he enthused.
